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23 November 2011

Philosophy books that should be translated into English?

Prompted by my post on Alain de Libera of yesterday, Tony Dardis asks on G+ whether there are plans to translate La Querelle des Universauxinto English. I agree with him that this would be a terrific idea, and started wondering about other books of which the same is true. I don’t mean classics by the ‘great authors’ in the philosophical canon (although there’s work to be done there too!), but rather recent scholarship published in French, German, Japanese, Arabic, or what have you, which should be accessible to those who do not read the original languages in question.

One example of such a book which has been translated is Béatrice Longuenesse’s seminal Kant and the Capacity to Judge (beautifully translated by our very own Charles Wolfe). I submit that de Libera’s La Querelle des Universaux is just as fundamental as Longuenesse’s book, and suspect that there are many other such books around.

I invite readers to suggest other titles (with a short explanation on why the book is so important); this may eventually lead to a list we could send to some of the top-notch publishers in philosophy. I think it is very important that the English-speaking philosophical world pays more attention to the great work being done in other languages, and if translations is what it takes for this to happen, then so be it.

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Philosophy books that should be translated into English?

Prompted by my post on Alain de Libera of yesterday, Tony Dardis asks on G+ whether there are plans to translate La Querelle des Universauxinto English. I agree with him that this would be a terrific idea, and started wondering about other books of which the same is true. I don’t mean classics by the ‘great authors’ in the philosophical canon (although there’s work to be done there too!), but rather recent scholarship published in French, German, Japanese, Arabic, or what have you, which should be accessible to those who do not read the original languages in question.

One example of such a book which has been translated is Béatrice Longuenesse’s seminal Kant and the Capacity to Judge (beautifully translated by our very own Charles Wolfe). I submit that de Libera’s La Querelle des Universaux is just as fundamental as Longuenesse’s book, and suspect that there are many other such books around.

I invite readers to suggest other titles (with a short explanation on why the book is so important); this may eventually lead to a list we could send to some of the top-notch publishers in philosophy. I think it is very important that the English-speaking philosophical world pays more attention to the great work being done in other languages, and if translations is what it takes for this to happen, then so be it.